


The Kings New Clothes

by starsandsupernovae



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Black Panther - Freeform, Not A Happy Ending, Wakanda, shuri udaku - Freeform, the black panther - Freeform, the black panther lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 11:41:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13997553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandsupernovae/pseuds/starsandsupernovae
Summary: this is angst. pure angst. i seem to do this a lot. Thanks to this post brought to my attention by @superhusbandswithasideoffamily because i mean she totally asked me to write the angst so blame her as well as the TSDL server who helped with some ideas.





	The Kings New Clothes

**Author's Note:**

> this is angst. pure angst. i seem to do this a lot. Thanks to this post brought to my attention by @superhusbandswithasideoffamily because i mean she totally asked me to write the angst so blame her as well as the TSDL server who helped with some ideas.

“Shuri, aren’t you going to watch your father’s speech from in here, with us?” Ramonda asked her daughter without turning. Shuri turned from where she had been slipping out of the far side of the room.  
“Well of course I’d love to.” She said, without moving back to her seat in front of the large screen. “But you know, lots to do downstairs. Besides, there’s hours of speeches before he speaks. I can go downstairs make the modifications to T’challa’s beads and be back before he does.”  
Ramonda smiled.  
“Alright then. But you must keep the stream on downstairs. You don’t need to be back up here with us, but you need to see it.”  
“Thank you.” Shuri answered sedately, walking out the room waiting till she was out of eyesight of all in the area to run the rest of the way down. She didn’t have too much work left on the kimoyo beads but she did have a new idea for the holograph ships they were using she wanted to try. The lab was mostly empty as she entered, ignoring the beads waiting for her in favor of a table on the far end where she busied herself with her design manipulating a small model.  
“Hey, Shuri.”  
Shuri turned to see one of her assistants standing behind her.  
“Hey Kali look here.” she picked up the small model of black sand and shoved it into Kali’s hands not waiting for a reaction before pulling up some schematics.  
“I think I’ve figured out the problem we were having last week, if you’ll look here” she highlighted a part before zooming in, pausing to give Kali room to say  
“Your mother sent a message down. It’s almost time for your father to speak.”  
If she could have dropped a holographic schematic, Shuri would have. As it was the schematic was left dangling in the air as Shuri checked the time.  
“Shit. It’s later than I thought.” Shuri said, closing down the plans.  
“Language, princess!” Kali pretended to be shocked as though she didn’t know how Shuri talked in the lab on a daily basis.  
Shuri merely made a shushing gesture as she closed down the vine compilation playing on the display to replace it with the live coverage of the summit. T’chaka wasn’t speaking yet and Shuri saw the room filled with men trying to look as important as possible. She grinned as she saw T’challa standing off to the side, trying to look both regal and relaxed as he surveyed the crowd. Finally after an eternity (five minutes) T’chaka took the stand and began his speech. Shuri felt an immense pride well up in her as she heard her father speak to the world, representing their country. She was so distracted she almost didn’t notice T’challa’s stance stiffening as he stared out the window, almost missed his sharp step back as he saw what was happening. But no one could miss what happened next, her brother running towards her father as the building erupted in flame and the stream was cut off. She spun in her seat to Kali who was staring at the screen.  
“What happened?” she asked in a surprisingly calm voice, feeling nothing but a mild curiosity in the moment, as though she was a small child and her father’s phone call had merely been disconnected. Kali was still staring at the screen, mouth open. She got up quickly.  
“I’m going to go up and see if I can get information.”  
Kali started to the door, and stopped, waiting for Shuri to get up.  
“Go.” Shuri said, waving her away, trying to figure out where all her emotions had gone. “I’m gonna stay down here and see if I can try and pick up what’s going on.”  
Kali left, leaving Shuri alone with the blackened display for only a moment before it was lit up again, back at the studio where the anchors were desperately trying to figure out what they were meant to be saying. Only small fragments of their words seemed to make it’s way through the fog of calm surrounding Shuri’s mind  
“Explosion at the summit”  
“King T’chaka’s speech interrupted”  
“Current death count unknown”  
“A bombing”  
She sat in place for another two minutes of shock before it all slotted into terrible terrible place. Her father and brother had been under attack. With only the protection Shuri had provided them with. And that might not have been enough.  
No. It had to have been enough, she couldn’t allow herself to think otherwise. But even while she tried to reassure herself of her father and brother’s prowess in battle, while she tried to convince herself that they were fine her mind supplied her with thoughts to the contrary, conjuring up an image she tried desperately to suppress. She tried to be strong. But Shuri was afraid.  
She remembered the first time she remembered feeling fear, back when T’chaka had been anointed king and a challenger had arose. She didn’t remember the identity of the challenger, nor the fight. All she remembered was trying to bury her small face into her mother as her father fought, tears falling. And the conversation she had had afterwards with him.  
“Baba,” she had asked that night when he came in to say goodnight. “Why weren’t you scared?”  
“My child,” he had answered, in his way that always made Shuri feel safe, protected. “I am T’chaka son of Azzuri of the Panther tribe. I had faith in our ancestors, I had faith in my courage and skills. Our family is strong.”  
Little Shuri had nodded then before another thought struck her.  
“I shouldn’t have cried. I was scared. I wasn’t strong like our family. I’m sorry, Baba.”  
“No, Shuri. It is true, you are a princess. But you are also a little girl, a daughter watching her father fight. And it takes a lot of strength for a little girl to stand and watch her father, even if she cries.” He had smiled at her, a special smile that always seemed to exude peace and warmth and made Shuri feel as though everything in the world might just be all right. He had pressed a kiss to her forehead then and left her to sleep, now her worries had been settled.  
Right now Shuri would give anything for that to happen, for her father to walk in and smile at her, for everything to be alright, for her worries to disappear.  
“As for the Wakandans-”  
Shuri’s head snapped up to face the screen then, all attention on the screen.  
“Prince T’challa’s whereabouts are unknown but he is confirmed as alive.”  
Shuri felt a slight sense of relief at that, knowing her brother was alright, but still full of fear, waiting for the reporters next words.  
“King T’chaka……”  
Shuri squeezed her eyes shut, full of fear now, icy cold tendrils wrapping around her heart.  
“King T’chaka is confirmed among the dead”  
If there was more to the sentence Shuri didn’t hear it. The words punched into her over and over, causing her to physically double over falling to the floor. She tried to breathe, great gasping sobs as the news hit her- King T’chaka, the nation’s ruler, her father was gone. Never again would she hear him laugh at one of her inane antics, never again would he take her out into the country, showing her the people and the people her, never again would he preside over the council, so many never agains, too many.  
Shuri felt the tears gather as she lay on the floor, saltwater trickling down her face before the flood started, an ugly mess of sobs and gasps and tears as she tried to realize what she had lost, the depth of the tragedy that had just befallen her. She wanted to run then, run from her lab, run from the screen on which the woman was still talking, why was she still talking?! Why did she keep reporting, why did people keep on talking, keep on going?! Why hadn’t the world stopped, the lights darkened, the sun gone down, why had the clocks not paused, why did life continue without him? Did they not know the gift that was taken from them?  
Shuri grew almost angry as she lay on the ground. How dare life keep on being lived? How dare people talk, and laugh, and be happy in a world without her father? She let out a scream, the sound ripping from her throat, bouncing around the empty lab, a scream of anger, of unfairness, but most of all a scream of pure pain.  
She didn’t know how long she lay there crying before she got up, wanting to do something, needing to do something. As she did her eye fell upon a project in the corner, something she had ‘always been meaning to get around to’ a concept of a special suit, one that could be worn under a normal one. One that could distribute energy back. One that had she only created it earlier, only tried harder, only done more, could have saved her father’s life. She had cried. She had been a daughter, who watched her father die. Now she would be a princess who would prevent the king from doing the same.  
When T’challa returned from his mission, Shuri had a new suit waiting.


End file.
